by Cara Russell
The beloved (or not) zucchini.
The other morning I had coffee with an individual, an islander whose identity shall and should remain a mystery. The reason for their anonymity–they are harboring a little secret. For the sake of the story, I’ll give this person a nickname. Though I’d prefer to call him or her The Zucchini Desperado, my friends prefer Zucchini Houdini—the one who every summer, drops plump zucchini squash into the open windows of parked cars.
If you’re an islander, odds are you know what I’m talking about. It’s a hot and dry summer day, somewhere around July and August. You make your way from the grocery store and cross the parking lot towards your car. You left the windows down so as to not return to a hotbox, and that was a mistake, because on arriving you find one of those green or yellow monsters laying in your driver’s seat. BAM! The Zucchini Houdini has hit. And now that summer squash is your problem.
When this Zucchini Houdini first moved to Orcas, he or she started a summer garden, planting five mounds of zucchini, with five seeds in every mound–25 zucchini plants total. All 25 plants came up. “Zucchini is very proficient, and I had them coming out of the gazu,” Houdini says.
With more than enough to eat, Houdini began giving them to friends, then next door neighbors. But that was still not enough. And so it began. Nothing special, Houdini would just look for a car that belonged to someone he or she knew, and if the window was rolled down, he or she would slip the zuke into the front or the back seat.
Houdini’s reign lasted from 2000-2009. Retired now, Houdini asked me to keep his or her identity a secret, if for no other reason than self-protection from retribution for the work that’s been done over the past decade. And although he or she is no longer sneaking zukes into open car windows, we islanders are no safer.
Just about everybody on the island who grows a garden in the summer, will grow zucchinis. They are extremely easy to grow, it seems you don’t even have to water them. Growing zucchini simply cannot be helped, even if you don’t like eating them. So, it’s only to be expected that there are other anonymous individuals. “All I know is that I found a zucchini in my car one day, and I knew it wasn’t me,” Houdini chuckled.
Any favorite recipes? I asked. “I cannot stand zucchini.” Houdini replied. “Unless it’s fried into zucchini pancakes with a side of sour cream.”
Whether or not you enjoy the vegetable, there is so much you can do with it. Bake it into a bread, make it into chips, pickles, layered into a lasagna, grilled on the barbecue with tomatoes and smoked Gouda, grated with potatoes and fried as pancakes.
As summer winds down on our little island, and the cold moves in, we can reflect on the sweet things that we’ll miss during the next long stretch before summer arrives again. So if you are the victim one of the Zucchini Houdinis, just remember what a sensible islander once said “You know how many friends you have by the number of zucchinis you have in the back of your car at the end of summer.”
If you are looking for something to do with your zucchini, find a copy of the book called The Zucchini Houdini (no relation to the subject of this article). I grow a dozen plants each year and never run out of ways to use and preserve it.